Through the Past Darkly: Reflections on UFC on FX 6 and TUF 16 Finale

You get a lot of time to think during a weekend with back-to-back cable TV UFC events. Between the commercial breaks and the promos for future fights – not to mention the requisite improv time-filler when a bout gets scratched – there’s so much time on each fight broadcast devoted to stuff that’s not fighting.

I realize that’s the way it has to be. Sponsors pay the bills, which is fine, even if I’ve now seen that MetroPCS commercial so many times I’m sure I could play the background music on the piano – despite having never played the piano before in my life.

But at some point during the roughly 10 hours of MMA I watched in the past two days, I couldn’t help but come back to that old saturation question. As much as we all love watching some face-punching good times, weren’t two events in a single weekend a little bit of overkill? If you’d cherry-picked the very best fights from both cards, wouldn’t you have yourself one killer event rather than two pretty good ones? And, in terms of building and sustaining a fan base, wouldn’t that have been preferable?

It feels weird to argue in favor of less free MMA, especially since I remember being an angry college student using my dial-up Internet to email ESPN and ask why in the hell they insisted on airing karate demos while pretending the UFC didn’t even exist (I got a reply email with a copy-and-pasted schedule of upcoming karate demo air times, so thanks, ESPN). It’s just that, even for the diehardiest diehard, there has to come a point where it’s all too much, where the sheer quantity of fights makes it too confusing or maybe just too painstaking to make it through to the quality ones.

I’m not just talking about the effect on ratings numbers here. I get annoyed when MMA fans get too fixated on things like ratings. If you like something, why should you care how many other people like it? Then again, every time I hear UFC President Dana White tell people who are complaining about watered-down fight cards that they shouldn’t watch it if they have a problem with it, I think about what would happen if too many of them started taking his advice. How would that help anyone? How can you be the organization that listens to your fans if you’re not willing to hear the criticism along with the praise?

Here endeth the hand-wringing and the complaining. Now on to what happened in between videogame and energy drink commercials this weekend.

Mitrione picks and chooses his way right into KO loss

I don’t blame Matt Mitrione for not wanting to fight Daniel Cormier in Strikeforce. He could spend the next six months living in wrestling rooms and sleeping in a singlet, and he’d still get out-grappled by the former U.S. Olympic team captain. But once again we see the problem with trying to maneuver your way into a matchup you like in an organization as tough as the UFC.

Mitrione (5-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC) didn’t want to hit the floor with Cormier, so he ended up losing a standup battle against Roy Nelson (18-7 MMA, 5-3 UFC) in The Ultimate Fighter 16 Finale on Saturday. It’s like one fighter agent I spoke to earlier this year told me on the subject of picking and choosing opponents: The UFC is not the place to groom a fighter who’s still trying to hone his skills. There just aren’t many easy fights to be found.

If you ignore the last 30 seconds or so, Mitrione didn’t look bad against Nelson. You watch him move, and you see a big man with real athletic gifts. At times you also see a heavyweight with fewer than 10 pro fights to his credit. Against a guy such as Nelson, who has the punching power to make your first mistake into your last, that inexperience can cost you. On Saturday night, seems like it did.

Pat Barry: Yeah, definitely too small for heavyweight…

Let’s ignore, for the moment, the fact that Pat Barry still has some holes in his ground game. Let’s also ignore his blatant fence grabs to try to keep the fight from going there. (Like my CME podcast partner Chad Dundas says, it’s pretty much always a good idea to cheat in an MMA fight — especially in the heavyweight division, where decisions are rare). Instead, let’s focus on what happens to people when Barry manages to lay hands on them in a striking exchange. Then let’s pray we never have to find out for ourselves whether it feels as bad as it looks.

From the moment Barry (8-5 MMA, 5-5 UFC) first connected with that looping left hand in his TUF 16 Finale main-card bout, it looked like Shane Del Rosario (11-2 MMA, 0-2 UFC) was searching for a comfortable place to sit down. Barry helped him out a few moments later, but fortunately showed the restraint that may have saved Del Rosario some brain cells.

Clearly, whatever deficiencies Barry has as a heavyweight, punching power isn’t one of them. When he hits you, something is getting broken. Whether it’s your face or his hand just depends, but despite a little bad luck here and there, he still seems like one of the UFC’s most dangerous heavyweights with one of the most mediocre records (5-5 in the octagon, thanks to this win). What do you do next with a guy like that, especially after he just wrecked a prospect like Del Rosario? I don’t know, but whatever it is I want to see it.

Don’t get too comfortable, ‘TUF’ winners

Three new “TUF” winners were crowned over the weekend, thanks to dueling seasons of the show both international and domestic. In “TUF” proper, Colton Smith (4-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) outwrestled Mike Ricci (7-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC), who ought to be making his living as a lightweight, while in the Australia vs. U.K. “Smashes” season finale at Friday’s UFC on FX 6 event, we ended up with Robert Whittaker (10-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC) and Norman Parke (17-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC), both of whom won unanimous decisions.

As usual, all three reacted as if they’d won the biggest fight of their lives, which was probably true. Smith was so jazzed he completely ignored the sponsor who had paid for the pleasure of handing him the keys to the new Harley-Davidson motorcycle that current UFC bout agreements will forbid him from riding. But now that “TUF” franchises are popping up like Starbucks locations, what does it mean to hoist that cut-glass trophy?

This weekend’s “TUF” winners are among six fighters to earn that distinction in 2012 alone. In 2011, there were three. In 2010, two. You see where this is going. The Shakespeare fans out there no doubt remember that speech from “Henry V” where the dread sovereign gets up in front of his meager army and tries to explain that, since there are so few of them to begin with, they’ll each get to bask in more glory per man once they beat those whiny French. So when you think about it, Henry explained, it’s really a good thing to be outnumbered. It worked at the Battle of Agincourt, but it might work the other way with “TUF” winners.

The more “TUF” seasons there are, and the more winners the show churns out each year, the less meaningful the accomplishment seems. There was a time when a show title meant a great launching pad to your UFC career, and it probably still does to some extent. It’s just that it’s started to get a little crowded in that particular club. Winning the reality-show tournament is a start, but the glory is getting spread awfully thin lately. And more “TUF” hopefuls are coming all the time.

A long climb, followed by a sudden fall

What in the world has happened to George Sotiropoulos? This time two years ago, he was riding a seven-fight winning streak in the UFC and had just polished off Joe Lauzon with a second-round submission. People were even talking about him as a title contender, and it seemed not at all farfetched. Now look.

The UFC on FX 6 main-event loss to Ross Pearson (14-6 MMA, 6-3 UFC) was his third straight defeat, the past two of which have come via knockout. Sotiropoulos’ (14-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) chin just doesn’t seem to be there. Every time Pearson put some leather on him, his legs got a little wobblier, and then finally they gave out altogether. If you believe Pearson’s tale about his assistant coach dropping Sotiropoulos with an off-camera punch during their stay on the “TUF” set, the situation might be even worse than we think.

It’s a great victory for Pearson, who needed the win just to keep up his pattern of following an L with a W, but for Sotiropoulos, it’s a troubling sign. When you’re 35 years old and you keep waking up on your back, it’s rarely due to any problem that will get better with age.

The real Hector Lombard finally showed up

Remember the Hector Lombard who was advertised way back when, the one who was so full of violent intensity that he couldn’t help but turn training sessions into all-out wars? That guy didn’t make it to his UFC debut in July, but Lombard (32-3-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) did show up to put a serious beatdown on Rousimar Palhares (14-5 MMA, 7-4 UFC) at UFC on FX 6. Just in time, too.

Everybody’s entitled to a poor first showing in the octagon. Jitters and whatnot. If you do it twice, you risk letting it become a habit. Let’s hope this is the Lombard who sticks around, and not that other guy who fought Tim Boetsch in Calgary.

I believe it’s pronounced ‘Hobby Love’

Rustam Khabilov (15-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) told Joe Rogan he was just doing some basic suplex stuff when he jacked up Vince Pichel (6-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) before slamming him down, over and over, until he stopped moving. You know, no big deal. That’s just what you do in your UFC debut, right? If you’re one of Greg Jackson’s beloved Russians, maybe.

For a couple years now I’ve been hearing from various fighters at the Jackson-Winkeljohn gym in Albuquerque about all these Eastern imports who were destined to make noise in the U.S. sooner or later. Seldom did anyone mention specific names – always just “The Russians.” Now some are starting to separate themselves from the pack, and you have to admit that dropping an opponent on his head is a good way to stand out. Welcome to the UFC, Mr. Khabilov. We’ll remember the name.

Somehow, Pyle is 37 years old and still improving

I guess it makes sense when you consider that he made his professional debut in 1999 (against the much larger “Rampage” Jackson, no less). If you’ve been in the game that long, you’ve got some years and some miles on you.

That’s why it’s so surprising that Pyle (24-8-1 MMA, 7-3 UFC) seems to have found a second (or maybe third) wind lately. His first-round TKO of James Head (9-3 MMA, 2-2 UFC) was his third in a row. He’s sporting UFC losses to Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger – both of whom are elite welterweights – and one in his octagon debut against Brock Larson (which he passed out trying to make weight for on short notice). But none of that is worth feeling ashamed over. Pyle might be closing in on 40, which still seems bizarre to me, but he’s not going anywhere. Normally I wouldn’t advise a man in his late 30s to go around sporting a mullet. In Pyle’s case, hey, don’t mess with success.

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is probably the greatest female fighter on the planet, which is a tremendous feat. So why are we seemingly so obsessed with arguing about whether she could beat up men?